I'm Steve Elliott from Shropshire, England. I was a member about a year ago. I had to drop out for a while but now I'm back. I'm interested in woodblock printing and intaglio work. I'm just an amateur so my printmaking has to fit in with earning a living.

I'm also interested in making paper from plant material. Are there any paper makers out there?

congrats- Jan on your up coming show !
i sympathize re: your differences with the gallery director

it is not often that the artist gets "total say" in how the show is hung etc
but I guess we can compromise for the sake of having our work seen by more
people
tho-i am pretty stubborn, i like to do it MY way !

in my case we are about as far as one can get from NYC or any "art scene"
but the" rural Maine" art scene.
Univ of Maine Machias has beautiful galleries
which were created with money donated by the family of the late John Marin
who live nearby and often support this tiny little campus

the gallery director - a fellow local artist, who earns steady pay as an
art professor there said " you're the boss, do what you want !"

i could not afford to frame 145 prints
some quite large
so i simply tacked them to the walls with a tacker (stapler)
in gigantic collages-according to theme-
as you will see when i get the pics done.
it worked quite well .
people commented that they loved the
INFORMALITY of it ,
it made them feel more comfortable and
not intimidated-- as can sometimes occur at
fancy galleries

i am not doing my show primarily to "sell art"
but , actually to re-educate the local population
as to my art work's existence and
introduce it to new comers.
when one lives in an area for so long
alot of things result-
one is that
folks can start taking you for granted!
unless you keep your work in the public eye by having it in galleries
and doing a show pretty much once a year (at least)
at anywhere you think it will be appreciated.

libraries are a good bet,
restaurants are great-or,
the waiting rooms of your local health clinic.
people often say to me --
"the first place I saw your woodcuts was Helen's Restaurant"
(a Downeast landmark)

one of my favorite things about being a printmaker is that
i can print a block that i carved 30 years ago and
it will still be brand new to someone-
actually to a lot of people !
especially the tourists .

after hanging the show for a week -
i had to take this week to catch up on my dwindling woodpile,
and print some blocks that people want to buy a print from !
next week i hope to begin documenting

presently cleaning up after our latest blizzard,
the ice man cameth but
i will print today--

Gillyin,
I know it is your work and tacking works...but sure a shame to put staple holes in nice work...here is what we do at Print Arts Northwest...we put small large headed steel nails in the wall at the corners points of the prints, then we use a small magnet to hold the paper to the nail. It is firmly in place if the magnet is strong and the paper is undamaged...so you might consider this next time. It works so very well and it you want the work to stand out from the wall, use longer nails.
Wish I could see your exhibit...it sounds so wonderful, especially seeing a retrospective. I had a small one a year or so ago and it was amazing to see my growth as a printmaker since I began! I am sure you experienced a similar experience. It feels good to finally know what we are doing.
Best to all,
Barbara

Gillyin, another hanging possibilitiy. And it is done in the galleries of
NYC. Push-pins--I saw it myself! There was no ciriticism in the review in the
newspaper either.
ClearBags.com

No holes need be put in the prints. When I used this method I placed
prints in plastic bags so they would be protected and put the push-pins in the
corners of the bags. That looked fine, no one objected, and work was sold right
off the wall allowing new prints to be immediately put in the space.

.In one exhibit, the 911 Firemen's Exhibit, the Baren prints were hanging on
the Gallery walls which were ok for push-pins or regular framed art. Either I
or a volunteer sat all during the exhibit hours because I didn't want to leave
the prints alone and many viewers wanted to ask questions. For a different
exhibit, some prints were hanging upright in locked cases so I didn't have to
be there and watch them. Because of the ease of this we may go into certain
exhibits which would otherwise be too much trouble and $$ , not to mention
elimination of lugging framed pieces back and forth.
( You may know by now that I am not always a stickler.)